Saudi co to join Dhaka for installing hydropower
plant in Nepal

Shamim Jahangir
15th January, 2019 09:19:42

A Saudi power and construction firm, Daelim Saudi Arabia Company Limited, has recently shown its interest to join Dhaka for construction of a hydropower project in Nepal under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

“We have received a proposal for building a hydropower project in Nepal for Bangladesh from DAELIM Saudi Arabia Co Ltd under PPP,” said a high official of Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB).

According to sources, the power division has already instructed the officials concerned for conducting a feasibility study on implementing the project in Nepal for Bangladesh.

“We are interested to participate in development of a hydro power plant under independent power producer (IPP) mode in Nepal with BPDB under PPP basis,” said Do-Hyeong Kim, Managing Director of the DAELIM Saudi Arabia Co Ltd, in a letter showing his “expression of interest” to Golam Moshi, Bangladesh Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, recently.

“In Nepal, we are developing a hydro IPP project “UT-1 (Upper Trishuli-1)” which will be funded by IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank”, he said in the letter.

“There is huge potentiality to develop hydro power projects in Nepal by Bangladesh and these can be developed with DAELIM”, said the DAELIM managing director. “We would gladly try to review the possibilities and check the project viability and risk allocation,” he added showing his company’s express of interest to work with Bangladesh.

The company has already developed a 102MW Gulpur Hydro power project in Pakistan, the official informed the ambassador. He added that the DAELIM has about US$ 11.3 billion revenue and around 6,500 engineers and other staffs in 2017.

Dhaka is interested in investing in two mega hydropower plants having capacity to generate 1646MW of electricity in Nepal. It has already placed a proposal during the 1st secretary level steering committee meeting held in December last year.

Bangladesh wants to invest in Nepal’s hydropower projects adopting various investment modalities suitable to Nepal including government to government mode, said officials concerned.

“We have been requested to share their views and comments regarding joint participation and development of Sunkoshi-3 and Sunkoshi-2 hydropower projects, and any other potential new location for development of hydropower project in Nepal,” the officials said.

Dhaka and Katmandu also discussed about the progress on import of 500MW hydropower from 900MW Upper Karnali project in Nepal to be developed by GMR, India.